Semiconductor reliability challenges from the fabless company perspective

The fabless company environment presents several challenges to establishing a successful reliability program. While there are many differences between a company that manufactures wafers and a fabless company, customers have no differences in their requirements for highly reliable devices. As such, the challenge for the fabless company is to provide high reliability without having direct access to all of the process information. This paper will focus on three topics involving some of the key technical aspects necessary for a successful reliability program. The first issue is correlating junction temperatures between the foundry and the fabless company. The second issue is gauging wafer process sensitivities with respect to standard packaging. The third issue involves tracking changes to the wafer process over time, the effects of the changes, and communication of changes between the fabless company and the wafer foundry. Lastly, a list of specific reliability information commonly requested by fabless companies is presented.